Here I am, a graduate of the University of Oregon, winner of the "hat trick," as my friend called it, hard worker with great references and connections--and I'm working in a restaurant. A decent restaurant, I'll give it that, but still. And I gave up a well-paid, halfway decent job in politics because my boss was, to put it lightly, a wee bit incompetent. A friend of mine said she admired that I did that, but I'm starting to wonder. I mean, at least it had some sort of connection to my interests. I had these high hopes of finding a job in a planning firm or somehow getting to work on the planning side of the RailRunner. Oops...
I'm stuck in the cliché dilemma of not being able to find a job that I like because I don't have the experience and not being able to gain experience because no one will hire me--exacerbated by the fact that we are in the middle of a recession. I was overqualified for the job at Repower and I'm painfully overqualified to be carrying plates of overpriced food to people. I'm overqualified to get coffee for a planning office and file their paperwork and answer phones, but I can't seem to be able to get that...to wiggle my foot into that door. I know that I need to go to grad school, but I'd really like to spend some time getting to know the reality of the planning world and talking to people who do it to find out what works and what doesn't, which schools are good and which aren't, what programs are most useful. Maybe I want to get my degree in a different but related field. A friend and I were talking about maybe getting transportation engineering degrees...but how can I figure that out if I can't even talk to someone?
All of this not knowing what to do is kicking my restlessness into high gear.
Today, I was at my high school, where I'm going to be helping the environmental clubbers plan a conference. I was talking to one of my teachers about what I'm doing now and how hard it is to find a planning related job and he was like, "yes, because we don't plan here." It's frighteningly true. The West is the land of homesteaders, of sticking a stick in the ground and claiming it for your own and building whatever you want and not worrying about making a plan because, hey, look how much space we have! I have really been starting to get excited about staying in New Mexico for a number of reasons--feeling grounded is a major one. But, alas, welcome to my world, where restlessness begins at three weeks and makes me crazy by six or seven months.
A couple people have asked if I'm considering looking overseas. I think about it, but dismiss the idea because it seems outlandish to even consider spending two to three years in another country. Even though I really want to. But tonight, after a conversation with my best friend that ranged from herpetology to urban planning (as our conversations often go...we are so different it's scary), I took a look at the website for the school of urban planning in Lyon. They only have a masters program, which is why I didn't take classes there while I was in France, but it seems like a really interesting program. International students are eligible if they get a certain score on the french competency exam and have three or four years of college behind them. The program is three years long, because they have a year of pre-masters since there isn't a planning license (the equivalent of undergrad). I don't know if I would have to do that program or if my undergrad would suffice, but the more I looked at it, the more excited I got about the idea of doing it. It's terrifying to think about going to France without the help of the Centre Oregon helping with a lot of the paperwork and details, but at the very least, I bet the Babots would make room for me, at least for a while until I got my shit together.
My head is honestly spinning right now. I just keep thinking that, if I get my butt in gear, I could be getting a masters degree in France in a year. In Lyon, ville de mon coeur, of all places. It's funny because the thought of researching grad schools has held very little interest for me lately, even though I know I need to do it. But I spent ten minutes looking over the program for this program and I was sold...I'm literally sitting here looking around my room and mentally packing my bags and figuring out what I could sell to have just a little more money and a little less junk in storage somewhere.
The more I think about all this, the more I dread going back to the reality of my life, where I work at a job that I hate to admit to...especially to my high school teachers who, I know, had much higher hopes for me when I graduated cum laude from one of the best high schools in the country. Not to mention to college professors who sent me on my way from the University of Oregon with some high honors. God, how pretentious is that? But honestly, I've seen people be much more pretentious about a lot less...
Ok, this is just getting ranty and ridiculous. I'll try to sleep on it...if my brain will just stop running around in circles.
No comments:
Post a Comment